Technical
The Optimal Photo Competition Judging Process
What competition entrants should expect from competition judges
A key purpose of membership of photography clubs and entry of images in competitions for the majority of members is to obtain objective and experienced assessment of their work. Competitions provide a comparative environment for this assessment as well as an opportunity to compete on some level.
However, a number of issues frequently arise after many completions causing considerable discussion among entrants. It seems no clubs here and overseas are immune from that!
Issues
While most competition entrants enjoy and feel they benefit from hearing judges’ comments, many entrants still express concerns about:
• consistency of individual judge’s creative and technical assessments;
• inconsistency among a number of judges’ creative and technical assessments;
• awards given out that seem inconsistent with verbatim comments during judges’ comments on images;
• variations in approaches used by judges;
• varying emphasis of specific attributes sought by judges and a risk that some judges “over-analyse” images thus risking losing sight of the “bigger picture” and creativity.
Therefore, understanding that judging any creative pursuit involves a mix of objective and subjective criteria, to help mitigate the above issues raised, a more clearly defined process and set of key assessment criteria should likely be adopted by clubs and provided to guest judges as a guide to assist their judging. Of course, their creative assessment of images cannot, realistically, be dictated by any firm guidelines – creative assessment is by nature subjective and competition entrants obviously understand and accept this.
Ultimately it seems that entrants’ most sought assurances when entering any competition are first and foremost: consistency and clarity!
Solution
To enable a more consistent, clear and “reliable” judging of images, the MCC has implemented some process and broad criteria guidelines, which are provided to invited judges. The same solution applies regardless of the “award” mechanism – scored points or simple commendations. These are:
Process – how the judging is conducted
During the evaluation of images, the judge awards commendations on the spot during his review and commentary on images (prints and projected) – not relying upon memory later on. At the end of judging a group of images, the judge then reviews the commendations given and upgrades the “commended” awards for the best of these as he/she sees fit to “highly commended”.
Criteria – what the judges look for in images
The club pre-briefs the judge as to the club’s overall judging criteria – the key attributes sought. These overall general attributes include: impact, visual appeal and technical skills used. At the same time the club includes in its brief and other factors affecting the criteria that might affect the judge’s judgment, such as degree of “creative licence” the club encourages.
Competitions as a source of learning – Clubs’ approach to competitions
It is important to remember that judging of photo competitions highlights the most valuable reason for entering such competitions - value added learning.
If for a moment at least, we can put aside our own aspirations and competitive spirit, and focus on what we might learn from comments about all entrants' images, often we can learn important lessons about what makes some images "work" more than others.
While that is something of a truism, putting our own sensitivities aside and listening to everything the judge has to say about our own images and others', and not just his compliments, we can learn how to better capture what caught our eyes. We have all felt that we have had a wonderful scene that will make a great image, only to be disappointed with the final result - disappointed ourselves or by others' reactions.
So when entering competitions, try to capture the valuable points made. Hopefully an excellent judge will communicate valuable messages in a compelling way that we will be mindful of in the future.
Above all, entrants’ expectations of judging are very high and most wish to learn from the experience. But, when entrants see the process is inconsistent and the evaluation criteria seem illogically applied, it risks becoming a negative experience – then the notion of learning is lost.
The issue of over-analysis is also important. Because photography is an art rather than a science, it is meaningless (and often laughable) to attempt to read into images presumptions about the author’s purpose, emotions and technical choices. Over-analysis in action often looks as if the judge is trying to demonstrate great skills and knowledge rather than focus on the author’s work!
Optimally, judges apply logical simple criteria, which relate to an image’s immediate appeal, impact and how well the image “works” including the reasons why or why not. Here, the learnings for entrants are to understand what creative and technical attributes either enhanced or detracted from the image. However, such comments should not be contrived, over-analysed or simply rigid adherence to the numerous “creative rules” (better referred to as “guides”) commonly used by photographers.
Ultimately photography competitions and their judging are about entrants’ enjoyment from making the images and hearing constructive comments – positive and negative - about them in their own right as well as in comparisons with other entrants’ entries.
Judging criteria
Image evaluation falls into 3 categories taking into account natural subjectivities involved. This process might be described as one that helps set key objectivities, consistencies and fairness to competitors:
1. Impact
2. Creativity
3. Technical
Impact:
The first is the most important and possibly the simplest. Here the judge should ask: Does this image have impact - stand out from the crowd; Is this image appealing - is the impact giving the viewer pleasure / interest or effectively communicating a message. The strength of these attributes are the main criteria for judging its merit.
Creativity:
Secondly, with the image's impact in mind, the judge should ask: what are the creative elements that make it work or adversely affect its impact? While there are numerous artistic "rules/guides" often used, the judge may identify the use of some of these, but should not judge it adversely for not using those elements unless their absence specifically detracts from the image's impact.
Technical:
Thirdly, there are a number of technical elements that contribute to images' impact - exposure, selective focusing, print quality, sharpness, overuse of digital tools.... etc.. Here the judge should consider how well or how badly technical elements were used to either enhance the image or detract from it.
Finally:
Therefore, ultimately images are best judged by their immediate impact rather than a "scientific" over-analysis of creative and technical elements. Having decided if the image has impact and is pleasing, the judge might support this by examining the use of creative and technical elements. From this point the judge may determine the degree of positive or negative reaction to the image. That is to say, if the image has impact and is pleasing, the judge may score it higher or lower by considering how the author used or misused the creative and technical elements.
Post Script
Ideally a competition should use a judging process that is clear, consistent and reliable to all that enter it. In a club environment, members will quickly shy away for entering competitions if they cannot rely upon judge’s using clear and consistent criteria and reliably making awards that are 100% consistent with their comments. Entrants are not interested in hearing platitudes by judges who stupidly think they risk offending authors by not being effusive in their compliments.
Of course judges should show good manners when judging a poor image, but if the image is not good then the judge has a duty to say why so that the entrant has the opportunity to learn from that experience. We can all get “compliments” from family and friends, but is is in competitions where we should hear the truth!
The following are examples of such inconsistencies:
1. "Ridiculous application of composition “rules”". The following image received (I’m told) very complimentary comments such as: “I really like this image…..” But then the judge finished by saying: “But if the author had captured 3 birds in the scene rather than two, it would be perfect!” I doubt anyone needs me to comment further about how meaningless this judge’s comments were! Had I been present I would have interjected with: “But, I had shot the other duck!”
2. "Inconsistency between the comments and the outcome". This image below was given great compliments about its mood, the capture of the shards of light, exposure and impact. I’m told it was lauded better than others judged then. However after judging about 30 images, the judge did not include it in the awards.
Above all, enjoy making images and hearing comments about them – aim to make your images please you first and foremost!